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Mourning The Loss of My Mother While She Is Still Alive
Embracing the pain is helping me heal
We are in a room — just the two of us. The specific surroundings remain a blur: the hues of that space, the furniture situated therein, the windows or lack thereof. All of these are absent in my recollection, except for two things: the stream of tears softly caressing my cheeks, and her reaction.
Why are you crying? I haven’t yet gone. I’m still here.
Mami doesn’t realize that I have finally accepted her death. And that though “physically” she lives, I am mourning the loss of the mother I yearned to have as a child.
Emotional Absence and Abuse
Bookended on either side by two brothers, I am the middle child and only daughter of a single parent. For years, I’d tried to convince myself that mami had done her best under the circumstances. She attended most parent-teacher conferences, I always had clean clothes (even if they were hand-me-downs), and I never went to bed hungry. That goes for the three of us.
What more could a child ask for?
And while it’s true that every once in a blue she’d yell at us for misbehaving, I’d be lying if I said she physically mistreated us. Though, I’ve often wondered which is worse…
